April 10, 2024


March 2024 – In Grand Rounds 45, Dr. Bynum shares the pros and cons of using healthcare-generated data, such as Medicare Fee-for-Service and Medicare Advantage, to identify people living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), as well as the use of population benchmarks in study planning and integrating health equity.
Margaret Terpenning Collegiate Professor of Internal Medicine
Division of Geriatric & Palliative Medicine
University of Michigan
Two IMPACT Collaboratory cores have developed new tools to assist in the design of embedded pragmatic trials (ePCTs) for people living with dementia.
The Design and Statistics Core has developed statistical tools and novel methodology to aid in the design and analyses of ePCTs for people living with dementia. These methods, manuscripts, statistical programs, and interactive web applications are now available to help researchers calculate sample sizes, intra-cluster correlations, and power for stepped wedge and cluster randomized trials.
The content can be accessed in IMPACT’s new Statistical Tools web page. The tools will be updated as new statistical resources become available.
The Technical Data Core has generated prevalence estimates of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) for the Medicare population by geographic regions (e.g., state, hospital referral regions) and settings of care (hospitals, emergency departments, skilled nursing facilities). These data include the total number of Medicare beneficiaries, total number of beneficiaries with ADRD, and key demographic characteristics (age, sex, race, dual eligibility). Data from 2020 and 2021 are available for Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare populations. The prevalence data are available with consultation to help investigators planning ePCTs for people living with dementia in these settings of care.
Learn more about United States Dementia Prevalence Estimates among Medicare Beneficiaries. Interested investigators may request a consultation with an expert.

IMPACT’s Cameron Gettel, MD and Julie Bynum, MD, MPH are among the authors of the CAPRA Data Brief on health care use patterns among older adults with dementia. The brief was developed by the Center to Accelerate Population Research on Alzheimer’s (CAPRA) at the University of Michigan.
Authors demonstrated the use of Medicare claims to examine healthcare use patterns among older adults with ADRD using datasets provided by the Impact Collaboratory. The brief cites the increase in emergency care, hospitalization, and skilled nursing facility admissions for Medicare recipients and an increased need for planning and care for people with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) in the U.S.
The IMPACT Collaboratory wishes to congratulate Hillary Lum, MD, PhD, who was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Palliative Medicine Reports. The journal, published by Mary Ann Liebert Inc. Publishers, focuses on peer-reviewed articles covering medical, psychosocial, policy, and legal issues in serious illness and end-of-life care.
Brown University’s School of Public Health is featuring the contributions of IMPACT multiple principal investigator, Vince Mor, PhD, as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. Professor Mor has led aging research at Brown for more than 40 years and he helped found the School of Public Health.
He is further credited with transforming aging and dementia care research after serving in the roles of department chair, center director and principal investigator on more than 40 National Institutes of Health-funded grants during his tenure.
Learn more about Mor’s work at Brown University’s School of Public Health, including a Q&A and video entitled Behind the Lectern: Vincent Mor.